What 22 MIT climate scientists told Trump, and other reasons to freak out

By JAKE ELLISON, SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM

Published
7:02 pm PST, Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Photo: Steven Senne/AP

Members of the scientific community, environmental advocates, and supporters demonstrate Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017, in Boston, to call attention to what they say are the increasing threats to science and scientific research under the administration of President Donald Trump.

Members of the scientific community, environmental advocates, and...

Wouldn't it be nice if all this doom and gloom about climate change was just a mistake made by panicky, elitist scientists? Or, heck, it'd even be great if it was just a hoax, even a lie ... anything but real.

That seems to be the tack taken by the Trump administration in clinging to climate change deniers. Most recently, the president et al. got all the good news they could take from one retired MIT professor, Richard Lindzen. He put together a list of 300 names of purported experts in a letter to Trump, proclaiming:

We urge the United States government, and others, to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We support reasonable and cost-effective environmental protection. But carbon dioxide, the target of the UNFCCC is not a pollutant but a major benefit to agriculture and other life on Earth. Observations since the UNFCCC was written 25 years ago show that warming from increased atmospheric CO2 will be benign -- much less than initial model predictions.

One of these experts on the list is "RØMCKE, Nils Håkon: (Swedish emailer who wished to sign the petition)." Haha, yeah. But climate alarmists were also quick to point out that even the more legit people in the petition were hardly experts in the field.

Then last week 22 MIT scientists jumped in the fray with their own letter to Trump published on the MIT website:

It has come to our attention that our colleague Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus at MIT, has sent you a letter urging you to withdraw from the UN climate convention, claiming that action with respect to global climate are not scientifically justified.

As his colleagues at MIT in the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, all of whom are actively involved in understanding climate, we write to make it clear that this is not a view shared by us, or by the overwhelming majority of other scientists who have devoted their professional lives to careful study of climate science.

Crap. And then the letter goes back into the same old song and dance: We dally on CO2 emissions at our peril.

The risks to the Earth system associated with increasing levels of carbon dioxide are almost universally agreed by climate scientists to be real ones. These include, but are not limited to, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and increases in extreme flooding and droughts, all with serious consequences for mankind. Professional societies like the American Meteorological Society are the American Geophysical Union have released official statements on the concerns of their members about these risks. We owe it to future generations to remain engaged with the international community to seek the widest possible efforts to understand and mitigate these threats.

We hope this information is helpful to you in evaluating the true balance of expert opinion on this important issue.

With Respect, The faculty of the MIT program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate (You can see the list of names on the MIT site)

Man, talk about alarmists! Even if it's happening, we have plenty of time. Right? Well, just to add to the bummer, here are a few recent events that show we'd better get to addressing the problem.

Last year the U.K. Met Office accurately predicted that 2016 would be the first year on record (and for millions of years) in which CO2 concentrations would remain above 400 parts per million (ppm). In a new study, the group claims that CO2 is still rising and will hit 410 ppm, possibly as early as this month or certainly by May.

Photo: U.K. Met Office

Observed and forecast CO2 concentrations.

Observed and forecast CO2 concentrations.

They wrote: "Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are rising year-on-year due to emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation." Pffft.

Also, another new study by mathematicians at the University of Exeter (some sort of U.K. conspiracy, no doubt) published in the journal Nature Climate Change reports that even if humans can keep global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, the Arctic stands a good chance of losing all its ice at some point every year. If we blow 2 degrees and hit 3 degrees, the chance of an ice-free Arctic is 73 percent. Almost no one expects the world to take the drastic action necessary to stop global warming at 2 degrees.

We've also seen the lowest sea-ice thickness, and we've seen the greatest amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. That one doesn't usually make headlines but it should; that water vapor comes from more evaporation because there is more exposed, open ocean. Also, a lot more water vapor is being transported northward by big swings in the jet steam. That's important because water vapor is a greenhouse gas just like carbon dioxide and methane. It traps heat in the atmosphere. That vapor also condenses as droplets we know as clouds, which themselves trap more heat. The vapor is a big part of the amplification story—a big reason the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else.

And, right on cue, come reports from the National Snow & Ice Data Center showing record-low ice coverage in the Arctic just as the melting season begins. The center writes:

Arctic sea ice extent for February 2017 averaged 14.28 million square kilometers (5.51 million square miles), the lowest February extent in the 38-year satellite record. This is 40,000 square kilometers (15,400 square miles) below February 2016, the previous lowest extent for the month, and 1.18 million square kilometers (455,600 square miles) below the February 1981 to 2010 long term average.

Photo: National Snow And Ice Data Center

The graph above shows Arctic sea ice extent as of March 5, 2017, along with daily ice extent data for four previous years. 2016 to 2017 is shown in blue, 2015 to 2016 in green, 2014 to 2015 in orange, 2013 to 2014 in brown, and 2012 to 2013 in purple. The 1981 to 2010 median is in dark gray. The gray areas around the median line show the interquartile and interdecile ranges of the data.

The graph above shows Arctic sea ice extent as of March 5, 2017,...

Well, at least we're experiencing some nice weather in roughly half the county!

"Get your flip-flops and shorts out because spring is arriving very early this year . . . at least 2-3 weeks early across almost the entire Southeast, from San Antonio to Atlanta to Washington, D.C. This unusually early spring is likely to keep rolling north, already bringing surprising signs of spring to portions of the central Midwest and northeastern states," writes the USGS.

Photo: USGS

USGS: A new set of scientifically backed maps produced by the USGS-led USA-National Phenology Network shows just how unusually early spring is arriving in the United States.

Record breaking warm temperatures this winter have caused plants to bloom early in the eastern United States. Unfortunately this has also resulted in the formation of spring-like severe thunderstorms and deadly tornadoes. Multiple tornado sightings were made in three of the last seven days.

On Saturday February 25, 2017 destructive tornadoes were reported in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. On February 28, twisters were reported in the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. Three people were killed in Illinois and four others were injured in Arkansas with this tornado outbreak. Severe weather on March 1, 2017 also included reports of tornado sightings in Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia.